Where the Iowa field offices are (final version)

My purpose was to document the information so that after January 3, we can see whether campaigns with the most field offices did better in the counties where rivals had field organizers and volunteers working without the visibility of an office.

I am publishing a new version of this diary because several campaigns have added more field offices this month. Also, someone at the Iowa Democratic Party informed me of slight adjustments to the number of state delegates awarded by a handful of counties.

More information than you probably wanted to know is after the jump.

I have listed the counties in descending order, based on the number of state delegates they will assign on the Democratic side. I took the numbers from this post by Drew Miller, who calculated how many delegates each county would contribute to the 2,500 total. He has corrected the delegate numbers for a few counties in that post.

I also give the 2004 caucus results for each county. Those numbers come from this table on the Des Moines Register’s website. The results reflect the percentage of county delegates assigned to the various presidential candidates (not the percentage of raw votes each one received in the county).

Here is a map of Iowa showing all 99 counties and county seats. Not all of the candidates’ field offices are in county-seat towns. If you want to see where all the offices are located, I suggest that you consult a good road atlas.

Obama’s campaign has opened an undisclosed number of temporary offices in the past month as well. A few weeks ago, Obama supporter Gordon Fischer put up this post about attending an office opening in Washington, Iowa. Gordon mentioned that it was the campaign’s 39th office. Since that wasn’t on the list of 37 field offices an Obama staffer e-mailed me last month, I contacted Gordon to find out where else Obama had opened new offices. He replied that it was a typo–there were just 37 field offices.

So I contacted the staffer I spoke with last month and confirmed that yes, there is a new Obama office in Washington. So how many do you have now in Iowa? 37, she said. Did you close one somewhere? No. But Washington wasn’t on the list of 37 Obama campaign offices you sent me before. She said she would look into it for me. The next day, she said that there are 37 “official” offices–they are not counting “temporary” offices like the one in Washington in that total. So how many temporary offices are there now? She would not say how many or where they are located.

That’s why I put an asterisk next to the “official” number of Obama offices.

All told, 43 counties have at least one field office for a Democratic presidential candidate. I was surprised by some of the small towns where Obama and Clinton have opened field offices. I had to get out the Iowa map myself to find some of these towns (Dunlap, Sheldon, Independence).

Granted, those campaigns have money to burn, and it must be very cheap to rent office space in small Iowa towns. Enthusiastic supporters may have even donated office space to the campaigns in some places.

But many counties where candidates have opened offices will assign less than 1 percent of the state delegates. Even if you count the delegates coming from neighboring counties, you are talking about a very small percentage of the state delegates.

Are the campaigns mainly vying for bragging rights as the one with the best Iowa ground game? Or will the visibility of all those extra field offices really help Clinton and Obama “organize, organize, organize and then get hot at the end”?

All of the campaigns have state headquarters in Polk County. Clinton, Edwards, Dodd, Richardson and Obama have HQ in Des Moines, Iowa’s largest city. Clinton has a second office in Des Moines. Obama also has a second office in Des Moines and an additional field office in the suburb of West Des Moines. Biden has his state HQ in Clive, also a western suburb.

Clinton has a field office in Waukee, once a small town but now a booming, affluent exurb to the west of Des Moines. Obama has a field office in Perry, a small town with a large (by Iowa standards) Latino population. The other campaigns are covering this county out of their state HQ.

Obama, Richardson, Clinton and Edwards have field offices in Marshalltown, a town with a large (by Iowa standards) Latino population. Other candidates are probably covering this county out of their state HQ.

All six campaigns have field offices in Ottumwa, a stronghold for organized labor. Bonus political trivia: Wapello was one of only five Iowa counties to vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and one of only four Iowa counties to vote for Bonnie Campbell for governor in 1994.

Clinton, Obama, Edwards and Biden have field offices in Decorah, a college town (in case you were wondering about that strong Kucinich vote). Others are probably covering this area out of their Dubuque or Cedar Rapids offices.

No, that is not a typo, this was Kucinich’s best county. Obama and Edwards have field offices in Fairfield, where Maharishi University and Iowa’s “Silicorn Valley” are located. Others are probably covering this area from Iowa City.

No field offices. The closest field offices are in Waverly (Obama), Charles City (Obama), Decorah (Clinton, Obama and Edwards) or in West Union (Richardson). The other campaigns are probably covering this county from Mason city or Waterloo offices.

No field offices. The closest offices would be in Decorah (Clinton, Edwards and Obama) and West Union (Richardson). Other campaigns are probably this county out of field offices in Dubuque, Waterloo or Cedar Rapids.

Biden has a field office in Osceola. The closest offices for other candidates are in Creston (Clinton and Obama) or Indianola (Clinton, Edwards and Obama). Other candidates are probably covering from state HQ or Council Bluffs.

No field offices. The closest offices are in Osceola (Biden), Indianola (Clinton, Edwards and Obama) and Knoxville (Obama). This county in south-central Iowa may be covered by state HQ or Council Bluffs offices.